Tag Archives: Afro hair

If you are just starting out with natural hair, let me tell you something. No matter what length, colour or texture of hair you have–natural hair is so beautiful. You have living art on your head, you have an enviable headpiece that is designed to stand out! My biggest advice is don’t abuse your hair trying to make it look like someone else’s head. GIve it lots of love and keep it protected this winter! I’m still on week 10 of my hair twist challenge (and okay, I do cheat sometimes and take my hair down for date night!) but it’s made a very noticeable difference being twisted or braided for the majority of the day or week. Believe it or not, you look JUST as beautiful with braids/twists as you do the trendy big Afro hair!

Doesn’t it feel damn good waking up every morning knowing you have been blessed with Afro hair? And yes, it can get dry and be fickle–but would you really switch it for any other kind of hair? Another great winter trick if you’re not 100% comfortable with keeping your hair in braids/twists but want it protected is to do the braids/twists then wear a cute hat outdoors, and leave out a sprig or two of kinky bangs. This way, when you return home, you can quickly re-twist the 1-3 pieces you undid. Voila. Another tip to feel more confident about rocking natural hair braids and twists which may seem a bit less unglamorous than extensions is to add some shine to the hair. You can infuse grapeseed oil or olive oil with aloe vera gel for the sheen, and I find my hair very shiny after co-washing with a can of coconut milk.

Hey beautiful sisthren and brethren! Today is another day above ground, which means, another day to turn to the things that grow from the ground to nurture ourselves with. I have been on a serious winter budget and so I’m relying on Shea butter and EVOO to last me through winter because…well, that’s what I have on hand, as well as a tiny sample bottle of coconut oil. I made an all-purpose body/hair moisturizer with Shea and olive whipped together, but I’ve been trying the Oil Cleansing Method instead of buying a new face wash. I love it so far for moisturizing my skin and giving it a natural glow.

However, I’ve noticed whiteheads/blackheads around my nose so I find a coconut oil and turmeric powder scrub (just the right level of abrasiveness) works wonders! Turmeric is anti-inflammatory and is known for clearing skin up…and, it’s cheap! I leave mine on for 15 minutes and it really helps even out my skin and gives the perfect inner shine for melanated skin!

I also find EVOO and Shea is a double killer when it comes to moisturizing my hair, which I’ve been keeping in twists. Now, that my heater is on 24/7 I keep my hair in braids to better hold in moisture. EVOO works great for keeping my hair super smooth and soft in braids. It’s the perfect moisturizer for winter, especially for those on a budget! To give your hair a bit of growing power, adding rosemary to the EVOO will make the perfect elixir. Simply put a few clean sprigs in a bottle and leave it alone for a week and a half, then take the sprigs out and use the rosemary infused oil in your hair. I find if I leave the rosemary any longer than that, mildew will start to form. To avoid mildew, get the rosemary as DRY as you can before placing it in the bottle and rub it first to release its magical oils.

Some people hate it! Some people love it! And others–like me–put this thick, strong-smelling oil back in our winter arsenal to help combat the cold weather’s drying effects on our kinks and coils. Since I’m doing a Twist Challenge for 6 month (the hair growth already is ridiculous…I’m heading from chin-length to shoulder-length territory!!!), I thought I’d try some new things with castor oil this cold season because I want to maximize the hair growth during those 6 months.

While doing an overnight castor oil + coconut oil hair masque, (simply apply the oils to damp hair overnight and rinse in the morning), I wanted to try soaking the ends of my hair in castor oil and securing in little baggies and elastic bands to really repair split ends. My hair at my crown is so thick and voluminous, but by the time you reach the ends it’s like..string cheese. Dry, puffy string cheese. My ends are chronically dry and it makes a hairdo look…hairdon’t.

Another way to sneak the benefits of castor oil into your daily regimen is to put a few tablespoons into your daily mist to moisturize the hair. I already add a bit of aloe, conditioner, water and coconut oil but the castor oil will help with more moisture. Because really, can you ever have enough for our thirsty roots?

On Wash Day, consider a rigorous scalp massage with castor and peppermint oil, bonus if you have/make rosemary oil. Castor is apparently amazing for the scalp so this is something that can be done before shampooing your hair or co-washing it.

These are just some other ideas other than using it for LOC to just to put some on your ends. Which you can still do, of course! Because love it or hate it, castor oil is a natural girl’s best friend!

Natural hair lights up a room. African skin is golden and magnificent, as deep as it is warm. Shades of cinnamon and ochre, not to be ignored. Ostracized. But majestic like mountains, rising like our hair. Regal like an eagle. Soaring above on our ancestor’s wings.

Never feel less than because your hair is different. It’s thirsty. You have thirsty roots. Like a mind thirsty for knowledge. Let it saturate in the oils of nature’s bounty. Do not neglect it in self-hatred, wishing it to be something else. An eagle can never be a tamed chicken, though it has been beaten and trained to cluck. Free it, and it will soar above. Naturally.

Sometimes, we have everything we need for our hair to thrive, and then some. We like to go all out and splurge on a new TGIN co-wash or some emu essential oil to add to our repertoire of hair products. Then, other times, and what this post is focusing on–times are HARD. Trust me, I know. I’ve put some questionable things in my hair, which has given me the insight to write this post. Sometimes you just don’t have a fancy nice butter with sumptuous ylang-ylang and a decadent acai berry scent to coat your thirsty strands! Well, damn, don’t worry cuz I got you! I’ve found some things that are next to nothing cheap you can keep in your hair pantry for those days.

1. Coconut Milk This can cost anywhere between $0.79 on sale to like $1.99 if you need to get bougie. Buy a couple cans and keep it in your pantry. I have thick hair to my shoulders (okay, if I boost and really stretch it) and a half can is one wash. The reason why this stuff is amazing is because it will lightly cleanse, moisturize and soften your hair and leave it shiny. Best used as a deep conditioner or in conjuction with a bit of condish you may have scraping at the bottom of your conditioner bottle. Put it together and voila…you’ve got a concoction that’s equal to the stuff in a $15 bottle! Thank me later!

2. Extra Virgin Olive Oil If you are running low on many other items, heat this stuff up and rub it in your scalp and through your ends before you do a co-wash or a regular shampoo. Leave it in for 15 minutes and rinse. This will keep you going until you replenish your regular oils that are more costly like Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, jojoba oil or Jamaican castor oil, or Shea butter. Or what have you. Different strokes for different folks. But EVOO works in a pinch. Add it to the last remainders of your hair butters for a bit of longevity! (Also works for body creams and moisturizes excellently).

3. Apple Cider Vinegar Buy a bottle for $3 and keep it for those days you need to clean a dirty scalp or rid yourself of all that edge gel you got going on. I don’t buy shampoo that often because I don’t wash my hair with it unless I have tons of non-natural products in it like hairspray and gels. But ACV comes through, it’s cheap and you don’t need a lot. Just watch out for the sting in the eye. Gets me every time. Use this when you run out of your regular curly girl shampoo and aren’t about to go buy another $15 bottle for a week or two.

4. Black Soap This Ghana staple will cleanse your scalp gently and a bar of it costs $2-$4 and a container of liquid black soap is about $2.99. It’s all-natural and you probably have some on deck to wash your face with. Black soap is made from Shea, honey, oils, ash and other nutrient-packed content and if you aren’t already using it to wash your hair, well now you know somethign that will keep your hair clean! Shoot, you just may never go back to regular shampoo again!

5. Eggs or Mayonaise If you have nothing else, it’s uninspiring but mix this with that desperate bit of EVOO you have left and you have a great deep conditioner. Bonus if you have a banana or avocado to add to this.

6. Cheap condish – I like to use natural, Black-owned hair products and the prices of these are sometimes double that of conventional hair products aimed at Europeans, if not triple. Most of the time I can afford them but sometimes, my hydro bill rockets or there’s a dope jacket on sale and for those times, I keep a cheap $5-$7 bottle of conditioner on hand like Live Free or JASON. When I have them, I add a few drops of essential oils to ramp up the effects and leave it there in the back of my vanity cupboard. When I get desperate and start rummaging for cheap condish, knowing I’ve run out of my regular stuff, I find Old Faithful.

7.Tea bags Most people have tea on hand. If you don’t, you’re probably not the greatest hostess. Use whatever you got on hand–every tea is beneficial to some degree or another and right now we are not being picky, now are we? You can use chamomile, green, black, nettle, ginger (even using the root and boiling it), Hibiscus, rosemary (just boil some of the herbs, and you can also do this with thyme) and peppermint is particularly good for oily scalp as it controls sebum.

I’m sure if you rummage through your kitchen, your pantry and your beauty cabinets you will find a few items to hold you over until the next time you can run into the hair shop and come out with every new hair cream. Just don’t forget to stock up on that coconut milk first!

My curls today were poppin’, the humidity is my best friend when I have flax seed and aloe vera gel on board.

Lately, I’ve been paying attention to the news. I guess we all have since Trump was inaugurated. I’ve watched the world slowly deteriorate and turn into some violent dystopic nightmare. But no place in the world is it worse than Africa, our Motherland. Mother Africa always suffers the most, it seems, by default. I’m not even sure which issue in Africa is the most pertinent because all those starving, suffering Black faces look the same to me. From the desperate West African migrants getting raped and tortured in Libya, to the starving babies in South Sudan and Ethiopia. I thought those African starving babies on the TV days were done…but now it seems that people flicker their eyes in pity and move on with their lives. I don’t know if it’s the famine, or the shortage of food or the militia or the criminals running the cities across Mali and the Gambia. All I know is Mother Africa has suffered enough, my people have suffered enough.

If I had one wish, it would be for stability, prosperity, health and happiness in Mother Africa. I wish we could rescue all of those children and bring them here to where we throw out food and complain of food babies at buffets.

In December, Vibe predicted natural hair would be a big trend in 2017. Which doesn’t really make sense. It’s our hair. That would mean being ourselves may not be as cool or avant-garde in 2018 or 2019? It would be helpful if they delved a little deeper and reported some cool new cuts or styles for natural hair that will be on point in 2017. I’m sure when a magazine talking about white women’s hair discusses new trends they don’t just say “European hair a trend this year!” Our collective hair journeys are not about running from bell bottom jeans to skinny jeans to high waisted jeans. It is about jumping from repression, from the devaluation of Black femininity to shaping our identity as modern Black women and embracing our own roots.

So is natural hair still a trend in 2017? If it is, good, because maybe once more women with Afro hair get on the bandwagon they will realize that they had something beautiful and unique all along–and they can flaunt it 24/7 and 365! Except…maybe on wash day. 😉

Our natural hair is so beautiful, African hair is just divine! It truly is a crown; as diverse, resilient, ever-changing yet unyielding as our African spirit. It takes patience and love (and a lot of detangling!) to give our crown the opportunity to show us what we are searching for: our African beauty in its pure form, as we finally embrace our kinks and curls.

Embracing my natural hair is easy for me. But it doesn’t always embrace me back. Sometimes I leave the house feeling like my hair is on point, only to come back home with a completely different looking hairstyle. Natural hair, you nah easy. Yet, despite the kinks in figuring out what works and what doesn’t…there is far much more to gain in being humble and learning from what grows out of our head. By giving it time to develop a voice and talk to us, so we can look in the mirror and see the queen within, so we can radiate and melanate our natural, African glow. From head to toe. From the crown to the sole. Our soul. Our past, present and future.

Every natural hair gal has to get creative in the hair department sometimes. Maybe you ran out of shampoo on Wash Day, or wondered if (insert food ingredient) would be a savvy hair elixir. Well, I too, have found out the hard way that some things work better than others. *Note: I have 3C/4A hair!

1. When you run low on condish.
This happens to me all the time, and I live in a tiny, rural town. I can’t just run out and buy some TGIN. Luckily, I keep an emergency stash of Herbal Essence Hello Hydration on hand, and a can of coconut milk. In the event of a snowstorm or something, these get the job done!

2. It’s Splitsville on my ends.
I hate split ends, who doesn’t? It hijacks any effort to grow Afro hair out. I can lose months of growth to split ends! To keep this under control, I apply coconut oil to my ends at night and wear a silk bonnet. Coconut oil is the best sealant, IMO, for stopping split ends. Once a month I use henna and an egg for a protein treatment, which is also super cheap!

3. Soft hair is sweeeet.
Very sweet, I found out, when I used maple syrup in lieu of honey (melted with olive oil). Molasses is great too, but being a pancake lover, I generally have syrup on hand. It really softens and adds shine to hair…just be sure to wash it out. well with warm water.

4. Clean scalp, look to the trees.
While beginning the process to loc my son’s hair in May, I had to find ways to keep his scalp clean without washing his hair and learned a spray bottle with tea tree oil, ACV and water helped keep his hair smelling and feeling clean until Wash Day, which was generally tea tree oil and ACV with Black Soap Shampoo.

5. Glow from Within (the Pantry)
This is a face tip, not hair. But I thought it was worth sharing. Bronzer is super expensive but there is nothing like the illuminative effects of it on golden, melanated skin. So, when mine finished, I started doing turmeric face masks 3x a week for a natural glow. I just slap some on dampened skin and it really does make your skin illuminate. Also, the powder is slightly abrasive so you get a good exfoliating effect as wel

The summer is upon us and the heat is magnificent. Despite trying loads of other hairstyles (read: hair FAILS), I find the deceivingly simple yet sophisticated Afro puff my tried and true from day one! Now I just put my hair up after giving it a really strong mist with water and SheaMoisture’s Curl Enhancing Smoothie.

I’m seeing lots of beautiful, thick braids this year around and gosh do these natural women look like goddesses. It is always refreshing to see so many naturalistas from big cities to small towns all around the world collectively embracing their hair, wielding their hair as a political tool of liberation and being role models for others, whether they are aware of it or not. Enjoy the weekend, curl friends, and remember…. Keep it wet!!!